The Product of Government
by nachalainne
Summary: Mycroft has been working too hard, and Sherlock doesn't like it.  Light angst, significant Holmescest.


"You're stressed."

Mycroft glanced up, over his steepled fingers. "Naturally," he admitted. "It is the product of government."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "More than usual."

Mycroft didn't respond. His eyes closed slowly, and he took a steady, deep breath - but he had nothing to say that would deny what Sherlock's eyes had already deduced. He was tired. He'd been working too hard. And as much as he would have liked to pack and go home, there was work yet to do.

Work that his little brother was determined to impede.

"Mycroft?"

He opened his eyes again. Sherlock had perched on the edge of his desk, between him and a stack of very important and very classified files that he needed to look through in the near future. Of course, Sherlock had planted himself there intentionally. Ignoring the fact that his little brother spread out over a desk was one of the more entertaining images circulating in his mind, it made getting to either of his phones quite impossible. Unless he wanted to reach around Sherlock - to drags his desk chair closer, and his hands nearer to touching that statuesque body.

He didn't have time for those games.

"Government, Sherlock," he answered again. "It requires a great deal of maintenance."

"You are the government, Mycroft. You can choose to invest as much time or energy as you want into it, and have an entire parliament of lackeys to fill in the rest."

The corner's of Mycroft's mouth twitched.

"Be that as it may... you know I never allow important work to be done badly."

"Yes, I had noticed the young blonde woman missing from the front desk."

Mycroft pursed his lips. "Transferred to the Ministry of Education - a less taxing position for her."

"The M.O.E.? Is that what you're calling the holding facility these days?"

It was difficult for him not to scoff. "You know there's no such thing, Sherlock. You invented the idea when you were seven, because you wanted to pretend that I'm some kind of secret villain."

"You are a villain."

"Yes, but that's no secret."

Sherlock smiled. Mycroft masked his emotions. Genuine amusement was so startlingly rare for Sherlock that he never bothered. He could act his way through a minefield of feelings for a case - but when he was actually delighted, he showed it. Mycroft, on the other hand, smiled and paraded his cheerful decorum every day - but Sherlock knew better than anyone that not an ounce of it was real.

He'd seen Mycroft smile once in his lifetime - only once.

"I can help, you know."

Mycroft hesitated, and Sherlock smirked. But his little brother's smug expression and bright eyes simply weren't enough. "I have work to do," he answered.

Sherlock's confidence slipped briefly. There was a flicker of confusion on his face, but he bounced back quickly. Leaning forward, he brought himself just a few inches closer to his older brother who remained upright in his desk chair with his hands folded neatly and his fingertips still pressed lightly together in front of his mouth. "But you don't want to do it," he pressed. "You know you don't."

"England doesn't wait for you, Sherlock," he replied quietly.

"It has before," his little brother retorted. "I seem to recall a day when the whole of Europe waited for me."

"It was a summit meeting, actually." Mycroft lifted his chin, looking Sherlock in the eye. "And they were waiting for me."

"Which," Sherlock continued, his smirk returning as the distance between his mouth and Mycroft's slipped away, "was all my fault."

Mycroft didn't move. "Admirable, that you should think so," he whispered. "But now England would like you off his desk."

"I'm not on your desk," Sherlock murmured.

"Then good day to you, dear brother."

Sherlock froze with his hands on either side of Mycroft's chair. His eyes were fixed on his older brother's, silently reading the cold, dark expression - tearing into the slightest glimmer in search of an answer that was not forthcoming.

"Why?" He finally asked, uncharacteristically confused.

Although he took a moment to answer, Mycroft's gaze never drifted. "Because I have never heard you ask for more, Sherlock."

Sherlock's eyes narrowed, but Mycroft ploughed on before his younger brother could interrupt.

"I have lost count of how often I have heard you say 'don't stop'. I remember every desperate moment, every plea that has ever left your lips. I have heard you moan, and seen you smile. But not once - never, Sherlock - have I ever heard you say 'softer' or 'faster', or even 'yes, like that' when we're together."

The clock on the wall ticked like a time-bomb in the silence that followed.

What felt like ages, but was inevitably only seconds, passed before Sherlock straightened up, mirroring Mycroft's typical frosty disdain to perfection. "You've just noticed?"

"No," he admitted. "I've known for some time."

"What does that say about you, I wonder?" Sherlock sneered.

Mycroft looked to the door of his office, dropping his hands to the abandoned arms of his desk chair.

"That is the true question," he answered quietly.


End file.
